I'll Be Looking at the Moon
by Jlovesallfandoms
Summary: WW2 AU Commander Shepard is put in charge of Private Alenko's training on Pearl Harbor Base. The woman instantly captures Kaidan's heart, and the story follows Shenko through Pearl Harbor and America's initiation into the Second Great War.


Kaidan Alenko was twenty-three years old when he first decided that it was time to enlist. His mother wept and clutched the cross, praying to her Lord that she would not lose her only son. His father died fighting in the Great War shortly after Kaidan was born, and Kaidan's sweet mother all but begged him not to enlist, to live a normal life and marry a dame in his city and have his own family, to let another man die for the country, but Kaidan heard none of it. Every day he would read the newspapers to learn more of the horrors across the waters in Europe. Although America has not yet officially declared war, he needed to join the effort. He needed to help save who he could, to fight for his nation, to act with integrity and help those who are not able to help themselves.

It's been a few days since he first arrived on his base in Hawai'i, far from his home in San Francisco. The island's humidity always seemed to mess with his coiffed hair, much to the rest of the new recruits' amusement. People treated him differently here, as the news got worse of the efforts in Europe. His skin was too yellow and his eyes were too slanted for comfort, according to the rest of the recruits. They called him names and excluded him like little kids in grade school. They chose to ignore the obvious fact that he was not Japanese at all, that his mother was a descendant of immigrants from China who worked on the railroads, but of course they did not care. He learned to ignore them most of the time, letting them channel their anger and frustration out on him. It really was not too bad, and everyone was emotionally compromised by the war on the other half of the world. He did not blame them for their anger, only for their ignorance.

On the first day of training, he stood at attention with the rest of his current squad of recruits. Each soldier stood tall and puffed out their chest waiting expectantly for their commanding officer to arrive. None of them expected the woman slowly walking down the dirt trail to name herself as the squad's officer.

"Gentlemen," The woman addressed the men before her and stood tall with a firm stance and placed her hands behind her back. Kaidan was taken aback by her voice, somewhat deeper than he'd expected but with a soft eastern twang as if she was from the opposite coast on the mainland. Her short hair was curled around her shoulders and carefully pinned in the fashion most women wore, and her lips were painted with a bright red shade. She seemed to flaunt her femininity with pride rather than in an attempt to conceal her obvious wore a standard military coat and skirt wrapped tightly by a belt over her black stockings and her newly shined black shoes. Her dress uniform was adorned and decorated with medals, despite her obvious lack of a military badge. The only badge he could properly scrutinize was in the form of silver angel winged shapes over a half circle. She did not seem too much younger than Kaidan, and already she held herself at such a high rank. She cleared her throat as she realized all the soldiers before her looked her over with a gaping mouth. "I am Agent Shepard of the Spectre forces, and will act as your standing commanding officer."

"Great. We have a Jap in our squad _and_ _then_ a girl dances along and calls herself our commander." A voice muttered from the other end of the line. Some men snickered, but everyone looked towards the culprit. Shepard's proud grin instantly dropped into a chagrin look of irritation. She slowly strutted towards the man who decided to call himself out.

"Step forward, Private." Shepard ordered as she placed her hands behind her back again. The man obliged and stepped forward with a snicker as if he could not believe a woman was ordering him around. "Name?"

"Harkin."

"You are addressing your commanding officer, Private. Show some damned respect." Shepard cleared her voice and barked at the man. Every man flinched as they watched Harkin instantly cower back.

"Harkin, ma'am." Harkin coughed and quickly corrected himself.

"Excellent, Private Harkin." Shepard's wicked grin instantly returned, her eyes flashing with vexation. "Thank you for volunteering to demonstrate your first lesson in self defense. Since you think yourself higher than some of your squadmates already, show your Commander."

"My momma taught me never to hit a girl; they're too weak to fight back. I'm not gonna hurt you, princess." Harkin crossed his arms over his chest as Shepard stepped back into an offensive stance. Faster than Kaidan could blink, Shepard's fist connected with Harkin's chin and sent him flying backwards. It was not meant to cripple his jaw, as Kaidan was sure Shepard was capable of, but more as a warning shot. He still managed to stay standing, but stupidly decided to try and hit back instead of standing down. She expected this and shifted her stance and crouched, letting Harkin throw his weight at her. She turned, trapping his arm between hers and used his weight as leverage to send him falling to the dirt. Muddy pebbles flew into the air as the man remained lying down with his bruised chin and shattered ego.

"Maybe if your daddy taught you how to fight correctly, your momma wouldn't have had to protect you so much." Shepard sighed as the men watching snickered. "Now get back into attention, Private, and wait for your commanding officer to give you further orders."

"Aye aye, ma'am." Harkin muttered with fear as if he was scared Shepard would throw him to the ground again if he did not stand in attention within two seconds.

Shepard's heels clicked as she slowly walked across the squad's line of attention, each man straightening their posture as they tried to make sense of what just happened in front of them. Shepard kept her chin parallel to the ground as she scrutinized each of them, "I hope you all learn from Private Harkin here how important it is to respect one another. You are a team, and will learn to act like one. None of you boys signed up because you expected it to be easy. There's a war waiting for us at our doorstep, and men and women die each and every day in Europe. I expect it won't be long until we join the effort ourselves, which means you might well be the ones to personally escort Adolf Hitler to the gates of hell. You will be whipped into shape as the strongest, bravest, most honorable men this Navy has ever seen, but God knows it will take work."

That night, Kaidan fell asleep terrified at the fact that he very well was attracted to, and longing after his commanding officer.

* * *

This is a bit of an abrupt end, but I wanted the first chapter to just introduce the characters and the setting. I know it is impossible for Shepard to get this high a rank as a woman in that time period, but in the next chapter I plan to explain more on her backstory and just how she got those rankings. If this gets enough of a response and I decide to continue it, I plan to make this an average length AU :)

If you enjoyed, please leave a comment below!


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